According to a report by IBM, looking at browsing and shopping habits earlier this year, smartphones were used more than tablets to access the web.

Source: IBM Holiday Benchmark 2015

This is borne out by our own site visit analytics for a client in the education sector in Saudi Arabia. Here you can see that, whilst the visits from smartphones have grown steadily, those from tablets have actually fallen slightly.

Source: Proctors analysis for Saudi education client

It should also be noted however, that tablet visitors were more likely to convert to taking action. The IBM study observed that 12.4 percent of all online sales came from tablet browsers, vs 10.7 percent came from smartphone browsers.

When running a marketing campaign there are huge amounts of issues and concerns that a marketer needs to consider. Not just the development of an appropriate marketing mix, but how a campaign is targeted in an era where individuals have an average of 2.3 devices.

In order to target effectively, a marketing manager needs to know how their audience likes to get their daily fix of media across which devices

Ad targeting company, Drawbridge, analysed data from one billion consumers to paint a picture of the new media landscape:

·Women prefer iOS devices

·iPhone users who also have tablets tend to have iPads

·Android phone users are less loyal with only 44% using Android tablets (compared to 78% above)

·Android tablets are more popular in Germany than any other country in Europe

There are some more stats that you can read here. However, the key point to take away from any report is that the days of traditional ad buying are dwindling. To run an effective campaign a brand needs to target individuals, regardless of the device they’re using. Then a manager can focus on the tracking, focus on the measurement and focus on the results to manoeuvre a campaign in real time.

A US study in eMarketer shows just how important mobile communication is for reaching an entire generation. The most revealing fact is that 87% of US millennial smartphone users have their phones by their side 24/7.

Mobile is the primary access point for the internet by Millennials. Image courtesy of Peter Bartlett.

Are you looking for reasons why you should make your website responsive for mobile and tablet browsers? Here's a great infographic from HubSpot which gives some pretty compelling stats to base the decision on, depending on your audience. Did you know, for instance, that 25% of internet users only view the internet through their phone, or that smartphone users check their devices 150 times a day on average?

A Pew Internet and American Life survey shows how teens 12 to 17 years old think about privacy when using mobile apps. While some are nonchalant about the kind of personal information some apps collect, more than half avoid some apps due to privacy concerns.

Girls who responded to the survey were more aware than boys of the risks associated with location tracking services in many mobile apps — 59 percent responded that they turn off location services, while only 37 percent of boys reported turning off the service.